Two U.S. Army command systems and the Navy’s Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (Surtass) lead the list of a dozen budget lines in the services’ “Other procurement” accounts with outyear spending plans that are doubled or more compared to what the Pentagon had estimated just a year ago.

The way to ensure the viability of the industrial base that makes U.S. defense procurement possible is to determine now what is most important to preserve for the future and start planning to achieve that objective, a defense scholar argues.

WASHINGTON - The budget line, which procures equipment to supports missile systems such as the LGM-30 Minuteman, AIM-120 Amraam, AGM-86A Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM), and the AGM-88A HARM, has a combined 2014 request and 2015-2017 estimated funding of $304 million, up from the 2013 budget estimate of $98 million for the same period.

The Pentagon has added $12 million to its 2014 spending plans to equip its Boeing 737-based C-40s with a fuel-tank inerting system, the same upgrade mandated for U.S. operators of Boeing commercial aircraft.

The 2013 spending plan anticipated spending about $1 million more than fiscal 2014-17 for various required modifications. In the fiscal 2014 request, the figure jumped $6.1 million for 2014 and another $6 million for the outyear estimates through fiscal 2017.

WASHINGTON - In the 2014 request, lines for the C-130J, MC-130J, C-17A and C-5 programs were all cut more than 40% when compared to the 2013 plan for the 2014 outyear. However, two modification lines for the C-130 airframe got big increases. (Photo: John Fricker)

In the Senate Appropriations Committee report accompanying the fiscal 2014 defense spending bill, the committee says it “continues to be concerned by the lack of visibility in the funding requests to support the EELV program.” The full committee approved its version of the bill on Aug. 1. (Photo: USAF)

WASHINGTON - The Senate fiscal 2014 defense spending bill makes a modest increase to an account that usually doesn’t attract much attention, adding $725,386 to the “Classified programs” line in the Air Force’s “Other procurement” account.

WASHINGTON - Congress will need to pass an amendment to a fiscal 2014 defense spending bill for the U.S. Navy to take advantage of a recent agreement to settle litigation of the canceled A-12 Avenger program, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) says.